


Ghosteps

by nightvesper



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff, Harry's guilt complex, M/M, Night Terrors, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 10:00:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29241711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightvesper/pseuds/nightvesper
Summary: Cisco wakes up from a night terror where he relives his death at the hands of the Reverse Flash. Harry tries to comfort him.
Relationships: Cisco Ramon/Earth-2 Harrison "Harry" Wells
Comments: 4
Kudos: 48





	Ghosteps

It was dark down here. The lights that adorned the walls of the S.T.A.R. Labs basement were usually a dull yellow, but today they glared cold and blue in Cisco’s peripheries. 

He had to check the recordings of that night. Something was wrong. He went through the motions on autopilot, playing the holographic simulation over and over. While he tapped the keys on his computer, he couldn’t help feeling a familiar sense of dread, his breath growing shallow, and his stomach twisting and lodging itself in his throat. The keyboard lost form, becoming nearly intangible to his fingers while he awaited what was to come. He always hated this part - the needle hovering over the balloon before it burst. 

Words tried and failed to squeak through his lips, mere echoes in time. They didn’t matter. The words that were supposed to follow them came anyway. 

“Some might say I’m The Reverse.” 

Cisco turned to see the man in the shadows. He had to. It always happened this way. It was in the script. 

Everything sped up after that. Eobard spoke, but Cisco couldn’t hear anything over his own heartbeat and the hum of the equipment. His legs wobbled. Tears welled in his eyes. Then he heard a throbbing, whirring sound like the spinning blades of a helicopter. 

“The truth is, I’ve grown quite fond of you.” 

The hand tore through Cisco like a drill. For a blinding instant, he felt everything. Electric current and vibrations ripped through every molecule of his body at the exact moment his heart was held and crushed. 

Eobard held Cisco’s gaze, his expression as icy as his eyes. “Forgive me, but to me, you’ve been dead for centuries.” 

Cisco’s field of vision narrowed until all he saw was blue. 

*** 

Harry woke to a loud noise. Groggily, he clicked on the lamp to find Cisco calling out in his sleep, a crying, shaking mess beside him in bed. Hair was stuck to his face and neck in stringy, sweat-drenched strands, and tears streaked down his cheeks. 

“Cisco? Wake up!” 

The engineer began to thrash, his arms flailing, and it called to Harry’s mind images of the time paradox seizure that nearly faded Cisco out of existence. Harry’s stomach dropped. 

“Cisco,” Harry tried again, shaking him urgently. “Cisco, wake up!” 

Suddenly awake, Cisco yelled and sat bolt upright into Harry’s arms. His red, swollen eyes darted around the room, blind with panic and confusion. 

“Hey. You’re okay,” Harry rasped, voice still rough with sleep. He rubbed down the length of Cisco’s trembling back and found the grey t-shirt he’d been sleeping in damp to the touch. Cisco didn’t respond to the sensation, his glazed, distant expression unchanging. 

Gently, Harry brushed the sweaty strands of hair out of Cisco’s face until he finally caught the younger man’s attention, but once Cisco looked up and locked eyes with Harry, it was all over.

Cisco’s breath caught and then quickened until he was hyperventilating. Tears turned into racking sobs that shook his whole body. Cisco made an abortive attempt to get away from the arms that encircled him, but his efforts were too weak and hampered by his panicked breaths to allow him much movement. 

Harry released him, brows drawing tight with concern. “Cisco?” 

Cisco flinched at the sound of his name, his body curling in on itself, and he turned away from the sound. It only took Harry a few moments to understand what was happening, the realization hitting him like a gut punch. A miasma of emotions. Of heartache for Cisco, of rage for what had happened to him, of guilt and frustration with himself. For _being_ himself. 

“ _Ramon_. Ramon. I’m not him, okay? I’m not _Thawne_. He...” 

Harry bit his lip. How could he help Cisco if he couldn’t even look at him without seeing his murderer? He felt his own anxiety rise like bile in his throat while Cisco gasped for breath next to him.

“Do you want me to call someone? Should I call Allen?”

The thought of letting the speedster into their space - their bedroom like this, of exposing Cisco’s vulnerability - exposing his own _inadequacy_ in taking care of his partner made Harry grit his teeth, but needs must. It was important that Cisco be okay. 

“Or I could call Snow? It’ll take her longer to get here...”

Harry’s hand reached on impulse to grab Cisco’s shoulder, but he stopped it before it could make contact and pulled back reluctantly. He watched as Cisco struggled to regain his composure by holding his breath for a few seconds and releasing it, his fingers engaged in a death grip with their soft cotton sheets.

“Ramon,” Harry tried again, keeping with his old formality of address in the desperate hope it would help differentiate him from the _Other_ in Cisco’s eyes. “What can I… Do you want me to go?” 

When Cisco still didn’t respond, Harry pursed his lips and decided he had his answer. He’d throw some clothes on and call Barry - Cisco shouldn’t have to wait for help - and he’d do it from the living room where Cisco didn’t have to be near him. The idea that he could cause Cisco this pain… Harry grabbed his smartphone off the bedside table and turned to get off the bed. There was a small sound of protest behind him, and then Cisco caught his arm. Harry looked back in surprise. 

“Wait,” Cisco said, his voice half-strangled and buried under exhaustion, but there. 

“I don’t think my being here is helpful.” 

Cisco frowned up at him for a brief second before flinching away from the eye contact and looking down at the bed.

“Harry...” 

“Don’t do that. Don’t – don’t feel guilty – you haven’t done anything wrong. I don’t want you to feel guilty.” Harry’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t even know if I should be talking or if that’s making it worse.” 

The grip on Harry’s bicep didn’t let up despite the fact that Cisco still wasn’t looking at him.

“I’m sorry I just…” Tears continued to fall from Cisco’s eyes onto the mattress. 

“Don’t apologize,” Harry sighed. “I should leave. This isn’t working.” 

“You’re gonna leave?” 

“I think it’s best if – ” 

Cisco choked on a sob. _Oh. He meant..._

Harry smiled wryly. “I’m not selfless enough for that. Not unless you asked me to.” 

An idea occurred to him. Harry put the phone back on his table.

“Here, if you're insistent on me staying. Scoot up.”

Harry sat with his back against the headboard and maneuvered Cisco to sit between his legs facing away from him. Cisco followed the direction without complaint, but whether that was out of a desire to actually do what he was asking, or if he was just too out of it to argue, Harry wasn’t sure.

Cisco let out a shuddering sigh when Harry brushed aside Cisco’s hair to place a kiss on his temple. They sat in silence for several long minutes. 

“Is this okay?” Harry asked quietly; almost afraid of the answer.

Cisco nodded. His breath had finally evened out, and he wiped his tears away with his forearm. “It was like in my vibe. When I vibed Thawne killing me. It looked the same.”

Harry bit his lip at the confirmation. He didn’t know what to say. He resisted the urge to wrap the engineer in his arms, worried Cisco wouldn’t take well to physical contact across his chest right now, remembering how Cisco used to flinch and cover himself when Harry approached him too quickly with tools in his hands. Instead, he took the risk to run soothing hands down Cisco’s shoulders, his fingers kneading into the knotted muscles he found there.

“It was so vivid.” Cisco started to turn back to look at Harry and then seemed to change his mind, leaning back into Harry’s chest instead. Harry squeezed him tighter. “Revisiting a past vibe in my sleep without my powers... can I do that?”

Harry hummed. “I’m not sure about your powers, but I’d guess it was more likely a night terror, and then you were triggered into a panic attack from that already heightened state of arousal.”

“I thought people weren’t supposed to remember night terrors.”

“Some do, but it’s less common. You’re unlucky, Ramon.”

Cisco huffed at that. After another moment of silence, he pulled one of Harry’s arms around himself to take Harry’s hand in his own, his thumb tracing over the knuckles. “Not totally.”

Harry’s heart lurched. Despite their months together he still wasn’t used to this. He knew he didn’t deserve the tenderness; it felt almost wrong to accept it, but Cisco told him practicing compassion had to start with himself. He brought their conjoined hands up to his mouth so he could kiss Cisco’s hand, and then surrendered them back to Cisco.

“I know you’re not him. I don’t see him when I look at you. I used to when we first met, but not now. You don’t even sound like him. I was just confused when I woke up and –”

“Cisco,” Harry interrupted him, testing the name out to see how Cisco would react. His voice was gruffer than he intended, but he needed Cisco to feel the weight of what he was saying. The renewed tension in Cisco’s body seemed to be more from worry about how Harry was handling this than his own anxiety, so he continued. “Triggers aren’t rational, and you can’t help how you respond to them. When you woke up, I was a trigger for you. My only concern is that I will be again.”

“If you are, will you do this again?” Cisco asked.

“Do you want me to?”

Cisco nodded.

A tiny, hopeful smile crept onto Harry’s face. “Then yes.”

Cisco squeezed his hand. “So, we’re cool then?”

 _Of all the ridiculous…_ “We’re cool.”

When Cisco began to turn around, a jolt of fear had Harry holding him in place. “Are you sure? We can – we can stay like this.”

“Harry,” Cisco said, and Harry released his grip on him reluctantly.

Harry held his breath while Cisco turned in his arms. There were dark shadows under Cisco's bloodshot eyes. He looked tired and worn, but otherwise okay. And Cisco didn’t hesitate when he pressed a soft kiss to Harry’s lips.

“I love you.”

Harry closed his eyes. The words always left him shaken. “I love you too, Buttercup.”

**Author's Note:**

> I used to have vivid night terrors due to PTSD where I would wake up screaming and very confused/not recognizing where I was or what was happening or who was with me. I thought I would draw from that for this fic. I always liked that the show didn't shy away from showing Cisco's trauma from experiencing his death and how easily triggered he could be, but I wish they'd gone further into it, so I thought I'd play with the idea. I hope it came across okay.


End file.
